Fresh iPhone Apps for May 20: PhotoForge2, BeatForge, Storm in a Teacup, Arno the Hunter

Leading the way into the weekend is PhotoForge2, a great app to have after snapping a bunch of photos on your iPhone. You can use the newly rebuilt PhotoForge to edit images with a lot of the power you’d see on a desktop computer. We also have BeatForge, an unrelated forge app that lets you […]

Leading the way into the weekend is PhotoForge2, a great app to have after snapping a bunch of photos on your iPhone. You can use the newly rebuilt PhotoForge to edit images with a lot of the power you’d see on a desktop computer. We also have BeatForge, an unrelated forge app that lets you create musical sequences quickly and easily, and a pair of quality games: Storm in a Teacup, an imaginative physics-based platformer, and Arno the Hunter, a casual game with some beautiful graphics and tough bosses.

PhotoForge2 (iPhone, iPad) $0.99

There’s some pretty solid image-editing software at the heart of the PhotoForge2, allowing users to access and edit full-resolution photos on their mobile devices. The app supports layers just like desktop photo editing software, which means you can mix multiple elements together easily to create some great images, and do more than just change colors or remove red eye like with many apps.

PhotoForge2 is filled with tools and effects to help you get exactly what you want out of your photos. You can resize, crop and add textures quickly and easily, and create camera effects by mixing lenses, flashes and film types just like you can in apps such as Hipstamatic. You can also adjust a lot of other levels and features, like contrast, white balance and shadows and highlights.

BeatForge (iPhone, iPad) $0.99

Turn your iPhone into a music instrument using BeatForge. The app has a pretty simple premise: it fills your device’s screen with a grid filled with buttons. Tapping any button adds a sound, either a percussive beat or a melodic note. As you tap more buttons and add more sounds, BeatForge plays them in the order you choose them in a loop, creating a beat and a song that you can create quickly and easily.

Along the way, you can define generalities about how BeatForge sounds – like which key the sounds come in or what genre they fit in. Different colors denote different sounds on the grid, so you’ll get a visual interface for what you hear, which makes editing and reworking your sequence easy.

Storm in a Teacup (iPhone, iPad) $0.99

As Storm, an elemental-type character, you’re tasked with flying your way through side-scrolling platforming levels. You control Storm, who rides around in a teacup, using virtual buttons to steer and to activate his powers of flight. By tapping a lightning bolt-emblazoned button, Storm takes flight for a short time – you’ll need to manage your flight power carefully by tapping the button quickly and gauging your momentum.

Storm in a Teacup carries 40 side-scrolling levels you can work through, with 15 achievements to earn along the way. The game also has leaderboard support from Apple’s Game Center service and Crystal.

Arno the Hunter (iPhone, iPad) $0.99

Some pretty incredible graphics adorn Arno the Hunter, in which you play a bow-and-arrow-wielding crab in some lush settings. Each level is a self-contained arena in which you can run left and right, dodging enemy attacks while firing arrows to take out flying creatures and earn points. Tilting allows you to move to avoid getting blown up, while power-ups dropped from the creatures give you a lot more abilities.

There are only three levels in Arno, but that’s not a bad trade-off for the price and the visuals found within. Each level also culminates with a big boss battle, which is a lot of harrowing fun to play through. You can also earn several achievements along the way to test your skills.

Phil Hornshaw is a freelance writer, editor and author living in Los Angeles, dividing his time between playing video games, playing video games on his cell phone, and writing about playing video games. He’s also the co-author of So You Created a Wormhole: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Time Travel, which attempts to mix time travel pop culture with some semblance of science, as well as tips on the appropriate means of riding dinosaurs. Check out his Google+ profile.